This invention relates in general to equipment for facilitating the access of disabled people""s wheelchairs and children""s pushchairs aboard vehicles, i.e. public transport vehicles, such as buses, trams or similar, with low floors.
Specifically, this invention relates to a ascent and descent ramp for overcoming a difference in level between the ground and the low floor of the vehicle where it is installed on a suitable gradient in accordance to standards.
The purpose of this invention is to make a ramp of this type, which can be fully folded away, i.e. which is included in the volume of the vehicle, and which, at the same time is relatively simple and cost-effective.
An additional purpose of this invention is to provide a ramp of the type described above, which minimises the number of actuators required to displace it, excluding, in all cases, the use of fluid actuators.
These purposes are obtained essentially thanks to the fact that the ramp according to this invention comprises:
a supporting structure embedded within a housing provided under said vehicle floor,
a platform displaceable between a retracted position and an extracted position, with respect to said supporting structure, parallelly to the vehicle floor,
electric actuator control means for moving said platform between said retracted position and said extracted position and,
cam means for controlling slant of said platform, during the final phase of its displacement towards the extracted position, from a position parallel to said floor to a position which is slanted downwards, where the front edge of the platform rests on the ground, and the return to said position in which it is parallel to the floor during the initial phase of its displacement towards said retracted position, by effect respectively of raising and lowering the rear side of said platform operated by said cam means.
Thanks to the idea implemented in this solution, the use of a motor unit and complicated mechanisms to rock the platform is avoided, with evident advantages in terms of construction simplicity and cost-effectiveness, as well as size containment.
According to a preferred form of embodiment of this invention, said cam means comprise:
upwards slanted sliding surfaces arranged near the upper edge of said supporting structure, and
complementary elements whose shape is complementary with respect to said sliding surfaces, articulated on the rear edge of said platform and co-operating with said sliding surfaces by sliding contact.
The sliding surfaces and the complementary elements conveniently have a rounded profile and are also equipped with reciprocal removable stop members between the rear edge of the platform and the front edge of the supporting structures in said downwards slanted position.
The platform can conveniently consists of a frame carrying continuous conveyor endless belt means for facilitating the ascent of the wheelchair or pushchair.